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The Ctenoplectrini are a small (fewer than 30 species), aberrant group of apid bees with short tongues and modified scopa adapted to carry floral oils rather than pollen. These unusual modifications had led many early authors to place them in their own family, the Ctenoplectridae, as their relationships to other bees were obscured by their morphological anomalies. Recent analyses clearly indicate that they are a specialized offshoot within the subfamily Apinae. They occur in Africa, eastern Asia, Australia, and various Pacific islands. They make their nests in small holes of various kinds, which they provision with floral oils, primarily gathered from plants of the family Cucurbitaceae. The thorax is somewhat cylindrical, presumably correlated to their nesting habits. A few African species are cleptoparasites on the non-parasitic species, and these are traditionally placed in their own genus (Ctenoplectrina), though this apparently makes the genus Ctenoplectra paraphyletic.
